"Oh, life can throw all kinds of trouble around to keep someone busy, if they want it," Frolic murmured absently, thinking of all the ways some were known to find something to worry over. Typically, the favored drama was in relationships, but if that didn't hold steady then it could be found in anything from their own self-worth to how unique their home was.

Her mind was still a little fuzzy, spinning as things tried to settle.

Alright, she thought, so the bush grew, choosing no direction, not one that reached away from what had split it or one that tried to continue how it was in spite of it, but merely growing as best as it could, where it could. But how did it know where that was? How does this bring on that sensation of... Settling?

She didn't know what she could do, who she could be. That hadn't changed. She couldn't make herself anew - trying had broken her sanity, splintered her apart from what she tried to place behind her. The truth was that was no more of an option than it was for the bush to have picked up roots and grown as if it had never been in such a spot, starting over from a sproutling. You couldn't escape your own history.

Nor could you keep growing straight up after a tree landed on you.

But what did that leave? To grow, in any way, any direction possible, without making a choice? How could that be possible?

Sighing mentally, she let her thoughts churn quietly over such things as she looked again to this stallion that had weathered through her sudden burst of tears as the act was torn away. He seemed... More withdrawn, now, his shoulders no longer pushed forward earnestly but tensed, his gaze flickering.

Was he wary of the crazy-arse mare?

A small spark went off in her head as she reacted naturally. Frolic, gentle and playful as she was, had always had a kind and caring heart, able to bear others through any trouble with ease because of her strength of character. Seeing this stallion she felt so indebted to uncomfortable generated an instinctive response to put him at ease; and deep within her skull a small light flickered to life.

The answer was this - to just exist, to be, to remain true to herself. This trait was still a part of her, a leftover of who she had been before, but different now as well as she handled the situation with the added views of recent events. Something that was different, changed, new, and yet at the same time tried and true, something that spread over all the crossroads within her.

She didn't know this yet - she wasn't exploring the little light she felt spark up within her, focusing instead on Avalanche - but later, when she took the time to look, it would make sense. There was nothing for her to do other than exist, to do such things as this.

"Though it keeps it busy to deal with such a thing, testing how and where it can grow even with the damage, it also adds some extra in that we notice it now. I don't think we would have paid the little bush so much attention had it had a different fate, do you? It would have sat and grown quietly, left in peace by our musings."

She nodded slightly here, as if agreeing with herself, and then tossed her short mane before stretching her neck out towards Avalanche. He had a chilled aura about him, utterly unlike what she was used to - rain forests were often stuffy and almost suffocatingly humid, with the constant storms. But it was refreshing, so she leaned a little closer still, exploring this newness while trying not to invade his space too much.

It was intriguing, how he could have such a cold air and yet speak such warm words as to help things shift within her. Or, shift properly, she should say.

"But I wonder," she said, tilting her ears towards the chill stallion, "If it would have liked being so unnoticed. Distance is safer, by far, but it can be hard.."

The topic within a topic was shifting now, her focus changing to the one next to her. He had closed himself off from her - she could see it in the tension of his neck, the tilt of his ears, how his earnestness had faded as he retreated from her. She would grow, things would settle within her; but why this distance, now?

The ladybug took flight again, landing on her ear. It tickled and took a lot of will power for her not to twitch it away, but resist she did. "Before it could grow as it has, it had to have been isolated, alone in the darkness under that tree. It was safe there, away from other things, but I'd imagine that dark was hard.. I know it's hard. I think it would like that it's noticed, now.. Or perhaps scared to be, after getting used to the tree. Which do you suppose?"

Avalanche watched her eye the branch further, seeming to mull it over. "The light must've attracted it, shown it where to grow. Oak and Shamrock say that even if things are hidden in the dark, they somehow can sense the light and which way is best for them to grow. Or perhaps not best." he left off with a shrug. Plants were really not his area of expertise.

"It's just survival... until it's not just survival, I guess. If that makes any sense at all..." He looked over at Frolic apologetically. Geez, he was even more cryptic today than usual.

A sigh before he continued. "You, unlike the plant, can look back over your growth and.. well the theory is you can go back and fix what you don't like. Change." Now a shrug, because he didn't know how easy it would be to change. Depends on the growth I guess... a simple habit, or something altogether more serious...? Probably depends on the individual as well, and the situation. Bah! He'd been spending too much time with his bonded as she poured over old learning. Science. An interesting concept.

Once more he looked at this green mare apologetically. "Sorry, I don't mean to be distracted." he was startled at the knowing look in her eyes. Much different than the blank and dejected stare he'd encountered earlier.

And as she closed the space between them, he stiffened ever so slightly. Not drawing away, no by no means. And he kept eye contact, showing no retreat in his gaze. But most others didn't much like the chill that seemed to roll off of him, and kept their distance accordingly. So it was a strange experience. She seemed to be enjoying it. He tilted his head to the side ever so slightly, studying the strange mare.

A topic within a topic indeed. And it was shifting to boot. As he worked through the complexity, he realized his error. How rude of him, to shrug her off like that. And after giving her a sermon too! But apparently she knew better than to let him get away with that. An explanation, then. Not quite so good as to be called an excuse, but at least something. "Distance is my norm, milady. My companion."

His ears perked and his eyes danced a little as he watched the ladybug. It seemed to like this Frolic... not that he could blame it, of course. "Perhaps both. It might enjoy the attention and be afraid of it in its newness at the same time, no? And you? Do you like distance much?"

And I don't know how To slow it down Oh, my mind's racing From chasing pirates.

Her eyes flickered, storms raging and churning within the orbs as she soaked up his chilled aura. He used few words, spoke in an obscure way, and somehow managed to shock her thoughts into reeling across worlds of pain, making things collide and connect.

The light must have attracted it...

It grew over all areas, reaching for life, towards the warm light.. But what was her light? Once, long ago, she would have said Spin. He was one, the only one, who she not only felt compelled to be strong for, but who she would lean on as well. And yet, here she was, finally admitting to the façade and allowing herself to be torn apart by her own uncertainty.

Looking at the bush as the ladybug moved from the tip of her ear down to her forelock, Frolic felt her thoughts spark together once her eyes fell on the shadows cast by the leaves. The light was not singular.

It was no pinpoint prick of light, nothing so minute. Light, for the bush life, it shone all around, reaching wherever the log didn't happen to block. It reached for the light - so she would simply have to move towards life. Forget about how she was growing, forget about choices, who she was, who she would be without any of such trouble, but simply move towards life in general. There would be that pain.. And some of the growing would be even more painful. But moments like these, where she stopped noticing the rips in her soul and simply lived, they would be her salvation.

It starts as survival. Just a way to continue, to thrive as best as possible. And then, it becomes something else, something more. It becomes your life, the way you live, what you're used to.. It isn't survival, by then.

And if she found she didn't approve of a way she had grown, of the way she found herself reaching to live? She could adjust. The bush couldn't look down and see that it was becoming hooked upon a splintered edge of the tree that had fallen on it, couldn't adjust the way that particular branch strained towards to light to keep from strangling itself in that area - but she could. It was both frightening and comforting, to hear this, to realize what it meant.

What's more, she was able to realize this. Before she had broken into tears in this way, before her mind was, numbly, turned towards this bush, these words, these connections within herself, wouldn't have had such an effect. She would have looked on blankly, numbly floating in a sea of dark misery and pained confusion. None of it would have mattered under the weight of what had been, might be, should be, would be, of all the paths that lay before her.

She had a feeling, a vague moment of premonition, that when she was again alone within her rain forest she would curl under a dripping tree, as she had so many times before.. And sob and shake until the last piece of dark pain had been shed from her soul. It was time to stop blanching in the shadow under the tree, scrambling and scratching at bark and earth, and time she moved towards the light.

The thought scared the piss out of her.

"Distance.. Has seemed to be safer," she admitted, crossing her eyes as the beetle crawled down towards her nose. And then said something ridiculously serious for such a comical expression. "Yet distance was my problem, or so it seems now. Distance from myself, distance from the words of others, distance from everything as I floated, lost, in my own personal dark."

She sneezed when it tickled her nose, blinking her eyes straight and looking off in the distance somewhere. Her gaze turned inward and, for a moment, the haunting pain had returned. Nothing would be as it was, pretending to be the same was impossible. Extracting herself from it was also impossible. As was remaining in her own personal darkness; if not those around her, then she herself demanded she move forward, in one direction or another. But what could she do? She hadn't known, had floated in limbo, adrift from everything.

Her eyes looked to be utterly dead in that moment, belonging in a corpse more than her own living face. It was something she had seen, once, in her reflection, though she had quickly splintered the memory at the time; but she never looked another in the face, not fully. Not then.

Blinking as the beetle landed again upon her snout after being sneezed off - stubborn little lady bug - she looked towards the stallion and blinked, her expression clearing. "Distance is safer, as it negates a lot of risk, but completely withdrawing isn't wise, either. It could have distanced itself from the light, instead of reaching for it.. That attention, that contact, I think it would like. I find it refreshing. But too much.. It would be overwhelming. Like an.. Avalanche."

Now she was the one embarrassed, talking too much. Ducking her head, she shifted her weight and let the cool sliding off the stallion ease her, a cold touch against her warm skin, as she let the ladybug return to the grass. Distance.. Yes, that had been her very problem, trying to force a single choice, to remain distant from everything.

"The trouble comes from trusting yourself to know just how much distance is safe, and how much we need to push ourselves to reach. That little bush doesn't seem to fear attention, as it's done more than survive but grown beautifully. But I would imagine there would be fear of gaining the eye of the wrong sort, as well. With the way the tree fell, it seems ever ready to retreat again if something were to frighten it overmuch. It can't, of course.. But we can."

Open mouth, insert hoof. She should quit while she was behind. But her nature had pushed her. She couldn't take from this stallion, not without trying to give in return. She cared for others, and greatly enjoyed spending her time in simple happiness. A roll in the flowers in the drizzling touch of a storm was her idea of sublime peace. It was natural, for her to want this, to bring it where she could. It was the driving force behind her façade. She couldn't make herself, her pain, weigh upon another.. To ruin the roll in the flowers.

"Distance from everyone is my norm. My domain is a snowfilled mountainside, and a barren one at that. I've grown so used to it that it's like second nature anymore." A note of sadness crept into his expression as he considered this. "And had it distanced itself from the light it would have starved. Possibly to death." He was aware of the danger, even if he mostly chose not to think about it.

Once he'd been wild and overwhelming as his namesake... 'Course that was in his younger days. He wasn't even sure he could use that excuse. It wasn't like he was an old nag... but he felt.. weathered. Worn out.

At the use of his namesake, he turned his gaze over to this strange mare who had started out listening and now seemed to be the one teaching. Guiding.

An avalanche. He studied the ground a bit, running through a comparison of himself now, as opposed to himself young and whole and new, as opposed to the overwhelming feeling the Frolic before him described and the wild, snowy phenomenon one generally thought of when an avalanche was mentioned. All this he thought over in considerable depth in the space of a few seconds. He tried hard not to lose himself in his musings; that would be extremely rude of him... almost as bad as the dismissal he'd given her earlier.

It seemed -at least at this point- that he was the exact opposite of wild stallion his name would suggest. Only the coldness of the snow remained. "I've never been one to regulate how much distance I kept from others. Especially not according to what might be good for me." The more he thought about it the better the idea seemed. He knew others worried over it a fair amount... his new bond family and bonded. But to worry over it himself had never crossed his mind. His expression was one of surprise as he looked once again into the red orbs of the mare here with him.

And I don't know how To slow it down Oh, my mind's racing From chasing pirates.

She blinked slowly, her red tinted gaze holding his own steady. Deep, dark blue, like deep ice seen at night, stared back at her. And she felt a hollowness in her chest, where her heart was, as she considered such a lack of regard for one's own self. It felt, physically, as if what had been her heart, her core, had shattered down to pieces small enough to fit within a single drop of rain water.

"The plant worried," she said softly, her eyes slipping out of focus once again as she felt the familiar pain swim to the surface. "Nobody else would worry for it. If anything was going to keep track of how much it could afford to reach out, to notice how much distance was safe, it was the plant. It cared, wanted to live."

Shaking her head, she sighed and let her muzzle droop to the ground, feeling every bit as if her soul had been wrung out and strung up to dry. They'd passed the point of keeping thoughts inside their head, hadn't they? Eh. She was too shook up to care much. After all, today alone she'd had a massive break down that lead to her finally connecting facts across a broken state of being.

"I lost my own 'norm.' For a long while. It seemed all I was had gone, that there was nothing of what once was, but it wasn't true. I had the core there, can't ever lose that." She paused, a small, sad smile touching her mouth as she looked brokenly at the bush. "That was my trouble. It was all stripped away, down to the bare branches, and I had no idea how to rebuild. I still don't, but it seems to be alright now, not knowing, not choosing what should become of me. I still have that core, at the least, and I can just.. Grow from there. As long as I don't keep too much distance, try to stay safe so much that it winds up killing me, starving me. I know it's there.. Because I'm doing this. Talking to you. Reading you, trying to give something back. It's not like you couldn't have noticed, so saying as much out loud doesn't seem to really matter. I've always done that, though, tried to help. Tried to be strong. It's automatic. Even while being ripped in a dozen different directions I tried to be strong, to make sure nobody else had to deal with any of it."

The corner of her mouth twitched a little bit, part of her thinking that, once, she had also been fairly reserved. She never poured herself out like this, not even to Spin. Their deepest communications had come through touch. But here she was, babbling such nonsense as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I guess I'm too weak from it all to play strong any more. And everyone needs to reach out for that light, that help, once in a while.. Hopefully before they lose even the very base of their existence. I can't imagine letting myself simply wither away in the shadow of that tree. Having it happen, sure, but not simply because I let it."

She was tough. She'd demanded that she get through it, that she move on - her trouble had come in choosing a direction. Who she had been, who she could be without any of it, who she was with the weight of the pain slamming on her, more, less, so many options. But she couldn't choose, because none of that had been right. It was all a part of her, all of it the direction she had to take, none of it anything she could drop off and leave behind. She would have withered away regardless, becoming so splintered, simply because she hadn't seen the only thing to save her. Not until that bush.

She saw it now, but it was a harrowing thing. Far back in her mind she felt an urge to close her eyes and sleep; and with it a deep fear that, being so utterly wrung out, she might never again wake.

He listened. He heard her words. But he could do nothing about them. He'd just come to realize how far he'd let the cold get. It'd nearly taken over him completely as he let himself go numb to the world.

The white stallion was left gasping at the shock of it all. He hadn't kept his distance from people, not really. Not recently anyway. But he'd let his mind freeze over, actions and responses becoming automatic. There'd been periods of thawing... like when he'd first recognized the pain in Frolic and decided to talk to her, to reach out. But he still hadn't put all of himself into it.

It was like waking up to a scalding hot bucket of water being tipped over his head. The shock of it nearly left him reeling. The cold had crippled his mind it had gotten so out of hand. And he'd let it! He embraced it even!

The surprise in his eyes was still there, heightened but reined in as he tried so hard to listen to what she was saying. He calmed himself as best he could, focusing on the words. After she stopped talking he let a silence stretch as he tried to gather his thoughts.

Finally he confessed. "I kept a distance, lady. But I did not know it. I understand a little better what you mean now... about what to do next. How am I supposed to find myself again? It seems I can never be the same. I feel I just woke up to find myself changed overnight... Lost and not sure which way to turn to get back. That's the point, I know, that I won't be the same. But.. what a shock!" He still went over it and over it in his head, unable to shake the amazement.

Finally he recalled her last musing. "I'm not sure that it would be good for the pain to go away entirely."

And I don't know how To slow it down Oh, my mind's racing From chasing pirates.